Exploring American Histories: Printed Page 442

Document 14.4

Sharecropping Agreement, 1870

Because Congress did not generally provide freedpeople with land, African Americans lacked the capital to start their own farms. At the same time, plantation owners needed labor to plant and harvest their crops for market. Out of mutual necessity, white plantation owners entered into sharecropping contracts with blacks to work their farms in exchange for a portion of the crop, such as the following contract between Willis P. Bocock and several of his former slaves. Bocock owned Waldwick Plantation in Marengo County, Alabama.

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Source: Waldwick Plantation Records, 1834–1971, LPR174, box 1, folder 9, Alabama Department of Archives and History.

  • Question

    What are the farmers’ responsibilities?

  • Question

    Why would Bocock want to clarify that his laborers would work equally hard throughout the year?

  • Question

    How might putting a lien on crops for debts owed create difficulties for the black farmer?

Put It in Context

Question

Why would free blacks and poor whites be willing to enter into such a contract?